Don’t know if anyone visits here anymore, still, despite that, seems like this is the sort of stuff that ought to get posted and even discussed. But discussions are so 20 century.
A Massive Study Finds No Evidence Aluminum in Vaccines Causes Childhood Disease
A 1.2 Million-Child Study Counters the Latest Vaccine Safety Claims
Jess Steier, DrPH, Elisabeth Marnik, PhD, Aimee Pugh Bernard, PhD, Edward Nirenberg, and David Higgins, MD, MPH
The anti-vaccine playbook has evolved over the decades. When studies definitively debunked claims linking vaccines to autism, the focus shifted to thimerosal. When thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines (despite a total lack of evidence of harm) and autism rates continued rising, the goalposts moved again (and again, and again…). Now, the strategy has pivoted to attacking specific vaccine ingredients, and aluminum adjuvants seem to be the ingredient du jour.
Even recently, RFK Jr. appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show, claiming that internal CDC evidence showed the hepatitis B vaccine (which contains aluminum adjuvants) increases autism risk by over 1000%. However, this claim fundamentally misrepresents preliminary 1999 data that was later studied more rigorously by the same research team and found no increased risk when properly analyzed.
This makes the Danish study published in Annals of Internal Medicineparticularly valuable. It’s exactly the kind of rigorous, large-scale research we need to counter unfounded claims about vaccine safety. …
Dealing with the anti vax sources can sharpen your logic skills
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/35080
No point in being shy, lets share:
General Advice
Before I get to specifics, I want to impart to you some advice for dealing with any claims in that domain, because there are three “dirty tricks” that all cranks like anti-vaxxers pull that you can look for to catch this happening every time, so you can vet these things yourself and not need someone like me to:
- They will cite papers that (i) don’t actually say what they claim, or (ii) don’t actually imply what they claim, or (iii) have been retracted or refuted by subsequent, higher-powered studies, or (iv) have never been independently replicated while the contrary finding has been. This is dishonest and manipulative. So anyone whose argument is mostly built this way is either (a) a liar you should never trust again, or (b) their gullible victim, whose judgment on this matter you shouldn’t trust until they get up to speed. And (b) you might be able to help. But for (a), just walk and block.
- They will make claims you can prove false with ten minutes of effort, and which when thus eliminated, fatally cripple their argument, calling their conclusion (and their competence) into sufficient doubt to walk away (see my Primer on Actually Doing Your Own Research). Don’t play their game of having to rebut “everything” they say. A single fatality to their argument is enough to identify it all as a waste of your time; but three is decisive. Any ensuing whining and raging is just emotional manipulation at that point. You don’t owe them any more of your time. You can just walk and block.
- They will make arguments that you can immediately identify as fallacious, and which when thus eliminated, fatally cripple their argument. Here, maybe, they can “fix” the argument, and all they have demonstrated is that they are bad at thinking. Which is not a good sign. But you can give them a chance. Though they only get three. Third strike and they’re out. You then know they cannot think. And if they cannot think, nothing they do think is worth the bother of your listening to. Walk and block.
Those three tactics are common to all pseudoscience and every implausible conspiracy, so it’s good advice all around. Whether it’s flat earth, lizard people, or climate denial. Or, indeed, even Christianity or Islam or woo—or MAGA.
… and then they will ghost you, and continue yabbering to others, not having heard or learned a thing.
I’ve been thinking about teaching out to Richard on that. He’s responsive to his audience, so it might get a response. Obviously an anti vaxxer directly impacts public health, essentially killing children.
By an extension of that logic, if anti vaxxers are not stopped, that killing continues. IMO, teaching people to recognize bad science is only part of the solution. It only reaches people who have enough of a start toward accepting the logic.
Reaching those who repeat and amplify the propaganda is something like putting out the source of the fire instead of only dealing with embers flying off of it.